Lot 3407 - A197 PostWar & Contemporary - Thursday, 01. July 2021, 05.00 PM
ROBERTO MATTA
(Santiago de Chile 1911–2002 Civitavecchia)
Sueño: un sogno. 1993.
Oil on canvas.
With the artist's signet lower left: Matta. Dated and numbered on the reverse: 1993 93/11. Furthermore with the faded measurements: 150 × 146.
150 × 146 cm.
The authenticity has been confirmed by Ramuntcho Matta, Épaux-Bézu, March 2021. We thank Mr. Matta for his kind support.
With the confirmation of authenticity from the Archives de l'oeuvre de Matta, Paris, February 1996. The work is listed in the catalogue raisonné's archive under: 93/11.
Provenance:
- Farsetti arte, Milan, auction 27 May 2017, lot 548.
- Purchased from the above by the present owner, since then private collection Switzerland.
The Chilean artist Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren, who called himself simply Matta, was one of the most important painters of the 20th century. The restless cosmopolitan, who prematurely ended his architectural career in Le Corbusier's Paris office in order to draw and paint in the circle of the Parisian Surrealists, lived for a long time in New York before finding a home in Italy in the last phase of his life. "Art should expand the universe instead of shrinking it", said Matta, and indeed his large-scale and abstract paintings open up new spaces.
After the Second World War, the artist, interested in natural science and obsessed with the universe, delved deeper and deeper into his own world of art, a world of "cosmic Surrealism". Cosmic forces seem to be at work in his art, as does the power of the subconscious.
The spirited and imaginative Matta did not paint what he saw, but painted what he felt, resolutely drawing his images from personal visions. His fictional, gigantic and form-exploding works which sometimes also reflect contemporary history, show fanciful realms, dream worlds, fears, visions of hell, chaos, extra-terrestrial creatures, utopian flying bodies, comic strips, amorphous forms as well as physics experiments that tie in with science fiction and computer games. But also blood streams, nerve tracts, atoms and molecules. To this day, viewers are moved by his oversized and profound pictures which are represented in the most important museums worldwide.
"I am interested only in the unknown and I work for my own astonishment." Roberto Matta
With the confirmation of authenticity from the Archives de l'oeuvre de Matta, Paris, February 1996. The work is listed in the catalogue raisonné's archive under: 93/11.
Provenance:
- Farsetti arte, Milan, auction 27 May 2017, lot 548.
- Purchased from the above by the present owner, since then private collection Switzerland.
The Chilean artist Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren, who called himself simply Matta, was one of the most important painters of the 20th century. The restless cosmopolitan, who prematurely ended his architectural career in Le Corbusier's Paris office in order to draw and paint in the circle of the Parisian Surrealists, lived for a long time in New York before finding a home in Italy in the last phase of his life. "Art should expand the universe instead of shrinking it", said Matta, and indeed his large-scale and abstract paintings open up new spaces.
After the Second World War, the artist, interested in natural science and obsessed with the universe, delved deeper and deeper into his own world of art, a world of "cosmic Surrealism". Cosmic forces seem to be at work in his art, as does the power of the subconscious.
The spirited and imaginative Matta did not paint what he saw, but painted what he felt, resolutely drawing his images from personal visions. His fictional, gigantic and form-exploding works which sometimes also reflect contemporary history, show fanciful realms, dream worlds, fears, visions of hell, chaos, extra-terrestrial creatures, utopian flying bodies, comic strips, amorphous forms as well as physics experiments that tie in with science fiction and computer games. But also blood streams, nerve tracts, atoms and molecules. To this day, viewers are moved by his oversized and profound pictures which are represented in the most important museums worldwide.
"I am interested only in the unknown and I work for my own astonishment." Roberto Matta
CHF 50 000 / 70 000 | (€ 51 550 / 72 160)
Sold for CHF 97 900 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.